Bethesda Will Deal With Trolls in Fallout 76 by Making Them Targets

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People can be terrible, and that goes double when they can hide behind the anonymity afforded by an online game. Trolling can ruin the experience for people who just want to have fun, but Bethesda is looking to combat the trolls in the upcoming Fallout 76. This online post-apocalyptic survival game will encourage the community to clean up its own messes by turning trolls into targets.

Fallout 76 is the first game in the Fallout series to played entirely online with other people. Set in the hills of West Virginia, Fallout 76 follows your character’s efforts to rebuild the world 25 years after the nuclear war that destroyed civilization. There won’t be any NPCs in this game — everyone you encounter will be a real person someplace on Earth. You can play alone or with a small group of friends, but there will be a lot of people playing in the same world as you. Some of those people might be jerks, too.

Bethesda says there will be penalties for attacking another player unprovoked, but not from Bethesda itself. If you kill a player who wasn’t looking for a fight, you’ll be marked with a bounty. The reward (in Nuka Cola Caps, of course) comes from the aggressor’s balance, weighted by level and how much havoc they’ve caused. Someone who goes around blowing up other players will eventually accumulate sizeable bounties that make them prime targets.

The map will show other players where troublemakers are hanging out so they can steer clear or go hunting for the bounty. There’s also a revenge bonus, which doubles the bounty if you take out a player who previously killed you without provocation. When you die in combat, Bethesda says you won’t lose your core gear like armor and weapons, which should make the occasional griefing less aggravating.

None of this applies until you hit level five, which is when PvP mode is available. If you want to avoid the whole bounty thing, you can activate pacifist mode. This prevents your weapons from damaging other players, so you don’t accidentally end up with a bounty on your head. You can also block players who are undeterred by the bounty system and just want to keep shooting you.

Bethesda plans to launch Fallout 76 in November, but it won’t be on Steam. You’ll only be able to get the PC version direct from Bethesda. It will also launch on PS4 and Xbox One.